Day 2: Kodak's presence at AMIA

Kodak attendees at the Kodak Booth at the AMIA Vendor Cafe: Diane Carroll-Yacoby, Nicole Phillips, Rick Utley

We're continuing our Kodak presence at the Association of Moving Image Archivists conference this week in Austin, TX. Kodak has sponsored a booth in the popular Vendor Cafe at the Austin Hyatt Regency Downtown. We've had a lot of Kodak friends stop by to inquire about our presentation at The Reel Thing on Wednesday, where we discussed KODAK Asset Protection Films for the future. Additionally, many have inquired on our KODAK Media Asset Management Solutions Service, which we are currently beta testing. A panel discussion with the George Eastman House, describing the Case Study which was done for this offering, is scheduled for tomorrow Saturday, November 19.

Secretariat wins the 1973 Triple Crown - by Bob Gately

Bob Gately became a horse lover when he saw Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney in National Velvet when he was 10 years old. Little did he know that later in life, he would shoot some rare and valuable motion pictures of horses.

Gately started bringing his Cavalier Super 8 movie camera to the Belmont racetrack in 1971, when an unlikely rags-to-riches horse named Canonero II was generating tremendous hype as a Triple Crown candidate. Canonero II had surprised everyone by winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, and a victory at the Belmont Stakes would make the horse the first since Citation in 1948 to complete horseracing’s ultimate feat.

My research in preparation for the launch of KODAK Ektachrome 100D Color Reversal Film in the Super 8 mm format led to a trip down nostalgia lane. As you’ll recall, 100D Film is a daylight-balanced 100-speed film, incorporating bright saturated colors and fine grain with excellent sharpness. It features some of our latest technological advances, and all of our internal testing show that it is an ideal candidate for Super 8.

As I scanned through some old press releases, it became apparent that Kodak has consistently touted the fact that many of today's great cinematographers and directors began their careers at the counter of their local photo shop, buying a cartridge of Super 8 film. In its own way, my experiences with Super 8 helped lead me to this point. During my early teenage years, my best friend and I toyed with the idea of bringing our vision to the screen. We brainstormed a few ideas, sketched out a plan, grabbed a Super 8 camera and went out shooting. We tried our hand at a few short comedy routines along the lines of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. We even tried some simple animation. These poor attempts at comedy make me cringe as I think back on it. In our few public showings, we certainly generated some laughter, but I suspect that most of it was at our expense. Although we had a blast making the films, the results suggested that we were both better off pursuing other careers. As summer came to conclusion, we put away the camera and moved on to other activities.

Defining Restoration

How many times have you purchased a new DVD that announced on its cover that it was a 'newly restored' version? What does 'newly restored' mean exactly? And, why is it better than the original DVD you purchased last year? 

In today's electronic world, people sometimes use the term 'newly restored' in reference to a transfer from film to HD for DVD rendering.  However, when transferring in this fashion - from an existing film element with specialized software - the 'repairs' only exist in the electronic record.  This is really 'repurposing' vs. 'restoring.' 

The Society of American Archivist defines Archival Media as ‘resistant to deterioration or loss of quality, allowing for a long life expectancy when kept in controlled conditions’.
If we try to apply this definition to the different types of storage media currently used in the motion picture workflow as it is structured today, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to find many media that fit this definition: other than film, that is.

Whether the production in question uses hard drives, CD’s , tapes or DVDs to store their content, there is always the very real probability that a hard drive will crash, that a tape will get scratched, that the format used will be obsolete and render the information unreadable in a few years (even if the information is still intact). What good does it do to have perfectly good information that you cannot access?